Baseball Movies

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will recognize the twin traditions of baseball and film when, for the ninth consecutive year, it hosts the Baseball Film Festival in Cooperstown, Sept. 19-21. Filmmakers can submit their work to be considered for the Festival through Friday, Sept. 5. Films can be of any length and […]

The excellent Joe Posnanski writes about Field of Dreams, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. As such, the 1989 film, which was nominated for three Oscars and won several “best foreign language film” from international organizations, will no doubt he the subject of similar pieces, some which will heap praise, others derision. The next […]

Obsessive as I am, I like to check the stats to see how this blog is doing and, being as niche as it is and considering the work I put into it, I can’t say I’m too disappointed. This ain’t The New York Times or Google, so I know it won’t draw huge numbers. I […]

Accusations of cheating on the diamond. The New York Yankees’ starting pitcher Michael Pineda garnered a lot of attention when he was accused of adding a foreign substance to the ball in a 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox on April 10. This just happened to come right around the time I watched the […]

Apropos of earlier entries about the 25th anniversary of Major League and a suggested new line of bio-pics, here’s a list from SI.com’s Extras Mustard of “11 Sports Movie Characters Who Would Suck at Their Sport in Real Life.” Two of the 11 come from baseball flics, including Henry Rowengartner in Rookie of the Year Ignoring the fact […]

As in Extra Hot Great, one of my favorite podcasts. While listening to EHG on my way to work this morning, I learned that Sarah D. Bunting (Bunting!), one of the regular hosts, was absent because she was delivering a paper at baseball conference. I did a quick search and deduced it was this one: […]

Not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it’s certainly an interesting (“based on a true“) story. On the other hand, it seems to borrow from so many baseball/sports films that we’ve already seen. A struggling sports agent? Jerry McGuire, The Scout. Who has an epiphany while witnessing something out of the […]

Note: This entry is a combination of the official press release sent by the Hall of Fame and my comments/edits. With the release of Legendary Entertainment’s landmark film 42 this spring, the worlds of movies and baseball came together for fans across the globe. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will recognize the […]

Last week I posted this entry on Tom Shieber’s frame-by-frame analysis to say “yea” or “nay” (sort of) to the urban legend that Gary Cooper’s baseball action while portraying Lou Gehrig was inverted since the actor was a natural righty (I wonder: there’s a scene where Gehrig is signing a ball for sick little Billy […]

I don’t often buy Entertainment Weekly. I usually permit myself an issue or two a year, including the “Best and Worst of” issues. Trouble With the Curve, which seemed to go from screen to DVD with amazing speed, was deemed #5 on the list of the worst movies of 2012. According to Lisa Schwarzbaum, We’ve […]

Frank, not Buzz. Entries are invited for the 2012 Baseball Film Festival at the Hall of Fame. From the press release: Baseball and the movies grew up together in America, becoming a part of the fabric of the nation that made both famous. Their shared history is on display every day at the National Baseball […]

From the Baseball Hall of Fame: Baseball and the movies grew up together in America, becoming a part of the fabric of the nation that made both famous. Their shared history is on display every day at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum through the Baseball At The Movies exhibit. And the newest […]

I don’t know, what name would you suggest for an award to honor the best baseball performances? At Oscar time, Jim Caple of ESPN’s Page 2 offers his take on “Academy Awards for Baseball Movies” (he dubbed his awards the “Oscar Madisons”). No real surprises here, although I would have selected Costner over Matthau, Davis […]

I’ve been meaning to do an entry on him for awhile now. I recently saw Matewan, in which Jones — who turns 80 today — plays “Few Clothes” Johnson, a coal miner involved in a strike. What caught my attention — of course — was a scene in which the miners play a game baseball […]

Actually, with the way it works, the Dec. 20 issue was last week (Tim Linceum graces the Dec. 27 year-end issue)), but there’s a goodly amount of baseball items in “The Year in Sports Media” issue that I didn’t want it to go by unremarked upon. The robots are taking over! Steve Rushin writes about […]

Flipping through the dial last night when I cam across Ronald Reagan starring as Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander in The Winning Team, a 1952 bio-pic. Alexander played from 1911-1930 and pitched in the 1915, ’26, and ’28 World Series, the last two as an elder member of the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s […]

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will recognize the twin traditions of baseball and film when, for the fifth consecutive year, it hosts the Baseball Film Festival in Cooperstown, Oct. 1-3. The Hall of Fame is accepting submissions for the 2010 Baseball Film Festival through Aug. 13. Films can be of any length […]

Would that be cool for the Miller brothers? This NY Times review of their movie, Touching Home, is a good start. You can also view an interview with Josh and Logan here. A reminder, the film premieres in NYC tonight at the Village East Cinema.

This is the time of year when we get the lists of the best and worst movies, books, etc. of the year. And because this is 2009, we get the bonus best/worst of the decade. Larry Tye’s Satchel was selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 notable books of the year, […]

(If you live in the Washington, DC area.) The Library of Congress will host a series of baseball films from Sept. 28-Oct. 2, as part of its “Baseball Americana Lunchtime Film Series” in the Pickford Theater of the Madison Building. Monday, Sept. 28 In Search of History: The World Series Fixed! The Black Sox Scandal […]

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Free 501 checklist available (Excel/spreadhseet format). Makes it fun to check off which books you've read and handy to bring to the bookstore or library to get what you still want to read. Send your request via email to ronkaplansbaseballbookshelf (@)gmail(dot)com.

Ron by Roth

In my "day job," I'm the features and sports editor for a weekly New Jersey newspaper. I'm also the editor of the Bibliography Committee Newsletter for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

I did a piece on the award-winning cartoonist Arnold Roth and he was nice enough to "immortalize" me.